This invention relates to arrangements for holding and transporting products in a stable upright configuration.
When taking groceries home from the supermarket or transporting other products, it is desirable to hold the products in a stable upright orientation. Various arrangements have been proposed heretofore for this purpose and they are disclosed in the following U.S. Patent: U.S. Pat. No. 3,388,886; U.S. Pat. No. 3,828,994; U.S. Pat. No. 3,986,656; U.S. Pat. No. 4,226,348; U.S. Pat. No. 4,305,519; U.S. Des. Pat. No. 285,885; U.S. Des. Pat. No. 302,062; U.S. Pat. No. 5,354,119; U.S. Pat. No. 5,415,457, U.S. Pat. No. 5,419,471; U.S. Des. Pat. No. 415,730; U.S. Pat. No. 6,053,570; U.S. Pat. No. 6,062,452; U.S. Pat. No. 6,135,332; U.S. Pat. No. 6,206,224 and U.S. Pat. No. 6,276,582.
However, these arrangements have various shortcomings, including lack of versatility, and/or taking up too much space when not in use, for examples.
An important object is to overcome the shortcomings of prior proposed arrangements in this field, and to provide a self-standing product holding and transporting assembly which is stable, versatile, expandable, and which may be folded down into a very compact unit when not in use.
In accordance with one specific illustrative embodiment of the invention, a vertical panel extends upward from a support surface, and has a stabilizing panel pivotally mounted to the upper edge of the vertical panel and extending to the supporting surface at an angle to provide triangular bracing; a base panel is pivotally coupled to the lower edge of the vertical panel and strapping arrangements extend from the side edges of the vertical panel to hold products in a stable vertical orientation mounted at least in part on the base panel.
Incidentally, the various panels involved in the present invention may include two or more parallel panels pivotally mounted together, and such panel constructions are to be included in the present patent specification and claims when reference is made to a xe2x80x9cpanelxe2x80x9d or xe2x80x9cpanelsxe2x80x9d.
Various aspects and features which may be included in the holding and transporting system may selectively include one or more of the following:
1. Hook and loop type fastening pads or strips (of the Velcro(copyright) type) may be provided to secure the straps together or to the panels.
2. Flexible couplings between panels may be of resilient material to provide biasing force toward the open, product receiving configuration.
3. The panels may be folded against one-another, and held by the strapping arrangements to form a small compact configuration when the assembly is not in use.
4. The strapping arrangements may include two straps, with one long strap folded back on itself for convenience in restraining relatively small products or sets of products, while still having the extra length useful for holding a substantially number of bags of groceries, for example.
5. The panels may be formed of solid plastic sheet material, or of stiff pressed board, covered with thin flexible plastic sheet material.
6. Regarding the number of panels, the assembly preferably has at least one vertical panel, one stabilizing panel and one base panel. However, in one advantageous arrangement, the assembly includes two hinged vertical panels, two hinged stabilizing panels and two or four hinged base panels.
7. To permit compact storage of the assembly when not in use, the hinges intercoupling at least some of the panels maybe implemented by extensible tapes, which extend as the multiple panels are folded into a stack of panels. These extensible tapes, similar to ACE(copyright) bandage tapes, have the additional advantage of biasing the panels to the open configuration, facilitating preparation of the system to receive the products to be held upright and transported.
8. The stabilizing panel may be pivotally secured to the vertical panel either at the upper edge or spaced down from the upper edge of the vertical panel, to provide triangular bracing.
9. A single strap may be employed, optionally, instead of the two straps.
Other objects, features and advantage of the invention will become apparent from a consideration of the following detailed description and from the accompanying drawings.